Feed apparatus for a slurry

Abstract

An apparatus is provided for feeding slurry to a recycling or slurry treatment process at an elevated location. The apparatus includes a reception hopper for receiving the slurry from a transport vehicle, and a bucket elevator for conveying the slurry from a loading zone, in communication with the reception hopper, to a discharge zone at an elevated location. The reception hopper includes a trough having parallel side walls and a bottom wall. The loading zone of the bucket elevator communicates with a first end of the trough, the trough including a movable wall extending perpendicular to the side walls of the reception hopper and being movable towards the first end of the trough to urge slurry towards the loading zone of the bucket elevator.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is a § 371 national stage of International Application PCT / EP2020 / 054461, filed Feb. 20, 2020, which claims priority benefit to U.K. Pat. Application Ser. No. 1902421.5, filed Feb. 22, 2019, both of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to a feed apparatus for a slurry, and in particular to a feed apparatus that can be used to feed slurry from a hydro-excavation or NDD process to a dewatering screen or other recycling or slurry treatment process at an elevated location.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Hydro-excavation is a process for performing ground works wherein high-pressure water jets are used to cut and dig earth and a vacuum system is used to suck up the resulting slurry into a storage tank mounted on a vehicle (referred to herein after as a “hydrovac tanker”) for subsequent disposal. The slurry held in the storage tank of su...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This patent describes an apparatus for feeding slurry to a recycling or treatment process at a high elevation. The apparatus includes a reception hopper for receiving slurry from a vehicle and a bucket elevator for conveying the slurry to the elevated location. The reception hopper has a trough with parallel side walls and a bottom wall, and a movable wall in the trough to push the slurry towards the loading zone of the bucket elevator. An actuator is provided to move the movable wall. The apparatus also has seal assembly around the movable wall to form a seal against the trough walls. The seal assembly may be replaceable. The trough has elongate guides along its side walls for guiding the movement of the movable wall. A support frame may be provided to keep the movable wall perpendicular to the trough walls. The bucket elevator has multiple buckets mounted on an endless belt, and the buckets are adapted to receive slurry from the reception hopper and discharge it at the elevated location. The apparatus may also have a dewatering device for removing water and oversize material from the slurry.

Problems solved by technology

However, problems can arise in feeding the slurry to the loading zone of the bucket conveyor.

The wet nature of the slurry prevents the use of traditional belt conveyors for transferring the material to the loading zone of the bucket conveyor.

Furthermore, solid material in the slurry tends to settle out of suspension in the reception hopper and fall to the bottom of the hopper, away from the loading zone of the bucket elevator.

However, the often abrasive nature of hydro-excavation waste leads to rapid wear of such screw conveyors.

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